So where to draw the line---------?

Well the reason I named my website 'A-fine-line' was because I feel in this world it’s that thin line which separates everything. Love from hate, night from day, fat from thin. Even though one subject might get multiple opinions, there is always a universal standard set. Who has set it? May be our ancestors, may be today’s youth, may be the media, and may be all of them together. Funny thing is how blindly we all follow it. Today, however, I wanted to talk about drawing the line in terms of talking/commenting/letting out our opinions to friends and family.

Why has the world become so vulnerable that whatever we might say can have an evil interpretation? For instance, when I was doing my Masters in Germany, on one usual day, I happened to compliment a girl in my class, as I had noticed that she came to college with a different hair do.  My compliment was, “ Hey X, you are looking different!” (yes, there was really an exclamation in my  intonation and a highly positive one with a smiley attached). But, her face sank and she almost feeling offended said to me, “Oh is it so bad?”.  I, obviously, immediately, started to defend my statement and told her that I meant she looked very nice, sweet and simple. Oh! there you go, I didn’t realize that it would become negative again. The half German and Russian couldn’t understand my Indo-Asian meaning of “Simple” and said.” What do you mean simple? (frowning her eyebrows). By now, I felt whatever comes out of my mouth will just sound wrong. So, I just ended it by saying, I mean you are looking very beautiful. Well, that was that. She didn’t seem to believe me anyway.  Now my question is, if I had to pass a nasty comment on her, why would I stop her in the hallway and tell it on her face. I mean, may be some people do that, but she knew me for almost a year then, and I have always been kind to her, why on earth, would I do that? I wouldn’t even do it to my haters!

Another time, a very close family friend just stopped visiting us because I had complimented her and she thought I was mean. Since there was no guilt in my heart, I never even realized that she had stopped coming to our place, until she told my mom how hurt she was with my comment. Alright, misunderstandings happen, that is why we have that word. But, where is the moral responsibility of people to come and give you a benefit of doubt and ask you to explain yourself. Where is the trust, when you know me since my diaper days and haven’t had a single history of anything bad? So, this close friend stood first in her university and got a gold medal. To share her happiness, she came home with sweets. My mom wasn’t at home, so I was the only one attending her. In a similar circumstance, my mom would say, “hey congratulations, I wish you have many more of such victories and may you get more and more chances to come and share it with us”. This sounds kinda very nice in my native language Bengali. But those days, I wasn’t so good at Hindi and I said the same in Hindi and she thought I meant something like: ‘ you are such a show off to run and come to our house all the time’. My oh My! It has been almost 15 years, we talk to eachother and everything, but I hope that someday, she understands that I just couldn’t have meant anything bad towards her and it was just my 'Hindi' that’s it!

Well I can go on and on, but I wish to stop here. I would expect people to trust each-other more. Remove the doubts in your mind. I know I myself would have misunderstood many, and I am genuinely sorry for that. One should not feel shy to come and ask for an explanation. It can only make things better. Don’t forget to look at the bottom line always. My dad says,  “if you are in a doubt whether or not to cross the road, choose not to (pessimistic approach), because that cannot harm you and if you are in a doubt whether a friend or loved one meant to hurt you, believe that they didn’t mean to (optimistic approach).”